


patchwork skies

by abscission



Series: the sky is blue and I love you [8]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Altean Lance (Voltron), Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Gen, M/M, Slow Burn, ft. universe hopping, maybe Blaytz will show up! who knows, some form of age swap, the 'original timeline' featuered here is also an AU so i suppose
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:28:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24830866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abscission/pseuds/abscission
Summary: Out of desperation, Allura pours all her power into Lance, the last surviving Paladin, and sends him back in time. "Do it over, do it better, save us all."happens beforedelicate. same 'verse.
Relationships: Lance/Lotor (Voltron)
Series: the sky is blue and I love you [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1509101
Comments: 6
Kudos: 87





	patchwork skies

**Author's Note:**

> writing has been hard lately.
> 
> inspired by whumptober '19 prompts: muffled screaming + trembling  
> 

A young boy stands in the yellow field, entranced by the sight in the sky.

When the ship finally crash lands beyond the horizon, it tears across the grassland, throwing up plants and dirt. The ground trembles, and then all is still. Time seemed to hold its breath. 

An explosion — the world shakes.

A tongue of fire goes up into the sky; the crash site belches big, coiling gouts of smoke, reaching straight and true into the purple sky. They soon obscure the blue flames.

The boy is already running towards the downed ship, his mother’s cat curled around his shoulders.

*

Every single alarm in the cockpit is going off. It’s too loud to think.

Nothing is responding, and Lance tries very hard not to panic. He keeps Allura’s face in his mind as he squeezes his eyes shut and begs Blue for a safe landing. Her smile was the last thing he’d seen before he was hurtling through time and space.

He feels the shudder of impact, rides through the shockwaves and feels Blue skid across whatever planet they’ve landed on. The visual module clears itself up, and he sees waves and waves of yellow. For a second, he mistakes the landscape for an Earth farm, and then reality catches up to him. It’s only grass.

Allura tore a hole in time and space and shoved him through. The odds of landing back on Earth back in his time are astronomically small.

The hiss of depressurization sounds through the cockpit. Despite finally coming to a stop, none of the Lion’s alarms have stopped blaring and the console is beginning to smoke, so Lance shoves down the memories and hurries out of there. 

Stumbling down Blue’s mouth, he feels her reassuring weight in the back of his mind shift, reaching out. After ten years of hard fighting, her presence had become as familiar and comforting as his memories of Earth. The adrenaline coursing through his system from the fight they escaped, Allura’s sacrifice, and then the crash, is too much, making him unsteady on his feet. 

_Get away,_ Blue tells him, not with words but with the urgency of movement. _Away!_

The force of her command and will sends Lance stumbling back from the Lion. He can’t wrap his understanding around it, however. He had gone through hell with Blue, fought off Zarkon’s forces for ten long, pitted years with her by his side — had flown through a tear in the fabric of space-time with her, there’s no way he’s going to abandon her now. Is there an immediate danger from the environment that he should be running from? 

War reflexes finally kick in. Struggling upright, heart pounding in his ears, Lance tries to look around, and that’s when he realizes what’s wrong. Before his eyes, Blue’s normally polished silver muzzle is rapidly turning black. Alarmed, he raises unsteadily to his feet to take in the rest of his Lion. 

“What is it, girl, what’s the matter?” Lance whispers, hoarse, and when his helmet fails to identify the mottled patches of rust and black that’s spreading across the Blue Lion’s body like rot, he pulls it off and throws it away. 

_Goodbye, my dear,_ says his Lion, and she purrs one last time, loaded with finality and regret and a flash of the multiverse behind his eyes. 

The explosion is more inwards than outwards, and the wave of heat that passes over Lance leaves only gooseflesh in its wake. The Blue Lion — bastion of hope, last Lion of Voltron left standing in the decade-long devastation that started with Zarkon’s recapture of the Black Lion — collapses in on itself. Her skeleton creaks, groans, and as they fall, her bright blue fairing crumples and breaks, turning black.

Lance remains on his knees. The heat of Blue’s unnatural fire is beginning to smart on his cheeks. He stares at the wreckage, comprehending but unwilling to accept, Allura’s last words ringing in his ears: “Do it over, do it better, save us all. I believe in you.”

How is he supposed to do that without Blue? 

“Allura,” Lance’s voice is small. He makes himself say their names. “Shiro. Keith. Hunk. Pidge. Coran— I’m sorry.” He swallows a sob. “Everyone who helped us—” Everyone who’s fate now depends on him, if Allura succeeded in her maneuver. He buries his face in his hands, feeling the wetness of tear tracks, and sobs, “King Alfor. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Allura, your daughter, she gave up her life for me, _for me_ , so I can do it over again, but I don’t know _how_ , please, I—”

There’s a gasp. It’s a very small sound, nearly drowned by the crackle of the chemical fire, but Lance hears it. He looses himself to instinct, summoning his bayard-pistol and spinning into a shooting stance in a smooth movement.

“King Alfor,” says the young boy in the sights, staring at Lance from between tall stalks of yellow grass. White hair frames a face that hasn’t yet lost its baby fat. Purple eyes are wide. There’s a smudge of dirt on pale lavender skin. From his shoulders, a familiar cat looks back at Lance. The young prince Lotor says, “You mean the Altean king. Are you praying to him? Is it what Alteans do to their dead kings?” He touches a small hand to his cheek. “Are you an Altean? Your face is glowing.”

It feels like his brain has turned to mush. He knows what this means— his brain is just unwilling to snap pieces of the puzzle together.

The muzzle of his gun tips downwards as his arms loose their strength. Weakly, Lance says, “…what?”

“Here,” says the young prince ( _young! …he’s so young_ ), rummaging about his pockets and producing a compact mirror. Holds it up. “Little marks on your face.” 

It’s true. Lance gapes at his reflection. Two blue ticks on his cheekbones — shining as brightly as stars.

_Stars._

They’re all gone. All of them. His friends, his family (but he never did see them again, did he?), _everyone_. 

Prince Lotor, coming up to no more than his shoulder in his kneeled position, younger than Lance could believe, stares at him guilelessly. Kova, not quite as stick-thin, peers out from his silver hair. 

Allura’s plan was a success. He’d gone so far back, no one had been born yet.

It is an effort to force his voice past the tight knot in his throat. When it does come out, he startles himself with the strangled whine. 

The bayard slips from his fingers.

It feels as though someone had punched him in the gut. Lance curls in on himself, the faces of everyone he’d ever known (distantly, he wonders if the solar system had formed yet. Lotor had lived so long…) flashes across his eyes, and he puts his hands over his mouth to muffle the scream that’s clawing its way out of his throat.

“You stay here,” says the young prince, sounding resolute and determined. “I’ll get Dayak.”

_All gone._

The tears don’t come.

**Author's Note:**

> we need more time travel AUs. what did you guys think?


End file.
